Chapter 146: The Stone in His Pocket, the Man in the Mirror
"Professor Quirrell, what are you doing here?"
Harry stared, dumbstruck. The man before him was in a sorry state, but Harry recognised him all the same. Was this not the harmless Professor Quirrell?
Quirrell stuttered when he spoke, taught terribly, and always smelled of garlic…
But if you overlooked all that, Harry had thought him a decent man.
Even when the students disliked him, Quirrell had been diligent. He started lessons on time, ended them on time, and never kept them late.
Harry even remembered seeing Snape threaten Quirrell once. By comparison, Snape was the one who seemed like the villain.
If anyone was going to be here, should it not be Snape?
"Are… are you trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone?"
Harry could hardly believe it. He could not connect the stammering professor with the mastermind after the Stone.
Quirrell did not bother answering.
After seeing what the mirror showed him, his thoughts kept drifting to that "future".
Could it ever be real?
"Haha. Severus does look the part of a villain, does he not? Swooping about like a bat, drawing the eye…"
"Who would suspect stuttering, cowardly Quirrell?"
A sharp, grating voice hissed in Harry's ear. But Quirrell's mouth had not moved.
"Such a shame about that Quidditch match when Dumbledore was away. I had a chance to kill you. Tsk. In the end, that meddling old fool…"
Harry looked at Quirrell in shock. So it had been him all along.
But Quirrell's lips were still sealed. The voice simply bored into Harry's ears.
At the same time, his scar began to burn more fiercely.
With every word, the pain became almost solid.
"Let me see him. Let me see this… Boy… Who… Lived."
The words came out one by one, dripping with contempt and hatred. But buried beneath them was a faint trace of fear.
Quirrell obeyed and turned around, his back to Harry, and began to unwrap the purple turban.
As the cloth fell away, he stared into the mirror and saw once more that quiet, peaceful scene. The healthy, refined version of himself, reading in a study.
Harry's pupils shrank. As Quirrell moved, the pain in his scar grew unbearable. He clenched his fists.
When the turban dropped to the floor, where the back of Quirrell's head should have been, there was a face as white as chalk.
It looked burned, the features blurred, twisted like wax. Grotesque and sickening.
The whites of the eyes were shot through with blood, glowing red, and below them were thin, slit‑like nostrils, like a snake's.
"Harry Potter…"
Without the turban to muffle it, the voice slithered close to Harry's ear like a whisper.
"The last time we met, you were an infant."
"Oh, you were so small, so small…"
"Your father and mother. Hmm. Brave but feeble resistance."
Harry pressed one hand to his forehead. Tears of grief or pain, or both, streamed down his face.
"V‑Voldemort?"
"Yes. Yes. Speak my great name!"
"Hahahaha…"
"Give me the Stone!"
Mad, unrestrained laughter poured from Voldemort's mouth, assaulting Harry's ears.
"Go, my child. Quirinus. That boy must know where the Stone is."
Quirrell snapped his fingers.
Ropes sprang out of nowhere and wound tightly around Harry, binding him fast.
Quirrell cast one lingering look at the mirror, sighed almost inaudibly, and turned to face Harry.
"Harry, resistance is useless…"
He was about to step forward and demand the Stone's location when—
"Wait!"
A sharp command stopped him. Voldemort's voice.
Voldemort's scarlet eyes widened and locked onto the mirror.
What had he seen?
In the glass, a figure stood with its back to him.
The figure wore school robes, dark gold hair falling casually across the shoulders.
It stood before a worktable, hands flying as ingredients were chopped and ground, then added methodically to a cauldron.
The flames beneath were unusual, constantly shifting in colour, sometimes blending into strange hues as they licked the base of the cauldron.
Voldemort did not think he had seen this figure before. Yet there was something faintly familiar about it.
As he wondered, the figure suddenly stopped.
It raised one hand. The flames instantly returned to ordinary orange‑yellow.
And in that pale hand, there now sat a gemstone. A half‑transparent red gemstone.
Voldemort's eyes contracted. His face twitched.
"The Philosopher's Stone!"
He forced Quirrell's body to step back. Though the movement was awkward, Voldemort's face pressed close to the glass.
His gaze burned with greed and longing, fixed on the gem.
The figure in the mirror casually slipped the Stone into a pocket, as if it were nothing more than a trinket.
As Quirrell crouched in that twisted posture before the Mirror of Erised, Harry struggled against his bonds.
But the ropes were too tight. He toppled onto the hard floor.
Ignoring the pain, he wriggled and squirmed. He would never bow to Voldemort.
He had to find a way to get the Stone first. He had to stop Voldemort's plan.
He had to stall. Hold out until Dumbledore came back. See Voldemort defeated with his own eyes.
As he shifted, Harry happened to glance toward Quirrell and caught a corner of the mirror in his vision.
In the reflection, he too lay on the floor, bound by ropes.
But soon, the ropes dissolved. He stood up.
The fear and panic were gone from his face. He smiled.
The Harry in the mirror reached into his pocket and pulled out a half‑transparent red stone.
He winked at the Harry on the floor, then put the stone back in his pocket.
In an instant, Harry felt something heavy appear in his own pocket.
The weight against his thigh, combined with what he had just seen.
A thought flashed through Harry's mind.
I have the Stone.
He forced himself to calm down and think it through.
All he had to do now was hide it.
Voldemort did not know the Stone had appeared in his pocket. So if he could just hold on, keep it hidden, he could last until Dumbledore arrived.
Harry carefully shifted his weight, pressing the pocket with the Stone underneath him.
At the same moment Harry felt the Stone in his pocket—
A soft laugh drifted out of the Mirror of Erised.
It sounded distant, as if it came from very far away. Only Voldemort and Quirrell, pressed close to the glass, heard it.
Voldemort watched the figure in the mirror extinguish the flames and carefully decant the potion into a small crystal phial.
"Good evening, Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts."
The figure finally turned around. Dark green eyes met Voldemort's, and a handsome, charming smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
In that instant, Voldemort finally recognised the source of that familiarity.
"Leonardo Grafton!"